CTD on Launch with Vanilla FO4, Nothing Helps

[shepardwrex]

I've been trying to figure this out on my own for literally weeks with no success, so I'm really hoping someone here will be able to help me out. I played FO4 for about the first month after launch with few issues, even with a good number of mods. I still had occasional CTDs on launch but this was very rare. About a month ago I decided to come back to the game, since there were new DLCs out. I updated the game and all of my mods, downloaded a few new ones and tried it out. No dice. The game crashes before the intro video about 19 out of 20 times I try to run it. If I can actually get to the point where I can load a save/ start a new game, there's also about a 1 in 20 chance it won't CTD. That means I actually get to play the game about once every 40 launches. I also get the launcher loop issue a lot if I don't load the game with f4se.

 

So after messing with my load order and FO4Edit looking for possible conflicts, uninstalling all of my mods, and verifying my game cache like 10 times, I decide to do a fresh install. I also delete all of my .ini files, my plugins.txt, everything from the original install but my saves. Well, the vanilla game crashes just as much (if not more, because ENBoost helped a little with stability). I have tried just about everything I can think of, including (many of these multiple times): clearing Steam's cache, disabling the Steam overlay again, rolling back from the beta update, switching back to the beta update, changing the game's resolution to match my monitor and running in borderless fullscreen, setting the game's .exe file to run as admin, lowering the graphics settings as much as possible, moving my Steam install from Program Files to Games and then reinstalling the game yet again, updating my Nvidia drivers, rolling back my Nvidia drivers, updating Windows, and killing any background processes that might be taking up my RAM. I do not have issues with any other games I play on this PC, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm really annoyed because the game is basically unplayable now and I haven't gotten to see any of the DLC content I paid for. If anybody has suggestions for me I'd be immensely grateful. I'm about ready to give up.

Edited June 4, 2016 by shepardwrex

[mellophonist]

Damn sounds like you got one hell of a corrupted game! You've already done anything I could recommend the biggest being a fresh install of the game.

 

I would make sure to go into your fallout 4 file in Steam and make sure there is no left over stuff from mods as when you delete local content from steam it doesn't delete anything modded as it's not associated with the base game.

 

I'm sure that's probably not the case but it's always good to double check and if there is a partial mod left over that can be the reason it's crashing as it doesn't have everything it needs to run properly.

 

Anyway that's something I would start with, I'll try and help to the best of my ability if that doesn't help, hopefully we can get this resolved.

 

Cheers,

Mello

[shepardwrex]

Yeah, I already did that when I reinstalled (all I kept was a backup of my saves). I deleted everything related to FO4 from the game install directory, the My Games folder, and Appdata\Local. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I really appreciate any help you can offer with this.

[mellophonist]

Well if you kept your saves did your saves have any mods enabled on the last save? If you didn't do a clean install then that would definitely be the source of your problem. Whenever you re-install your game and you want to keep your save, make sure you save, disable all your mods (make sure any modded items are out of your inventory and your in a cell that has no modded items), go into the game, make a new save (one with no mods), then re-install your game and then re-install your mods. It's a pain in the ass but that's the only way to save your playthrough.

[shepardwrex]

I've tried loading a variety of both modded and clean saves (including one from just after the vault that I made before I ever modded the game at all). I'm also trying it with full saves, not auto or quicksaves. The crashing issue happens regardless of which save I try to load. It also happens when I try to start a new game. In all cases, it'll show the loading screen for a minute then CTD.

[Royhr]

Well did you try starting a new game right after you re-installed FO4 before you even installed any mods or anything else. I know it a real pain to do but I'd uninstall FO4 once again and then delete everything else you can find on your computer that is related to FO4. I mean everything. Completely delete the FO4 folder in your documents folder. Also delete the FO4 folder where the pluggins.txt file is stored. Now this folder can be located in a different location than where most people will tell you to find it. I know because mine is not in the location that most people say. Took me a bit to actually locate it when I needed to clean everything out one time to do a clean reinstall. I found it in a slightly different place. Not sure why but I did. So just make sure that you actually find the right folder and delete the whole thing. Then reboot the computer and try installing FO4 once again. Then after the install try to run the cleanly installed vanilla FO4 to see if it can start a new game. Don't install anything else until you can see if it'll run or not.

 

Also I'd probably say to give up on running any previous saved game and plan on just starting a new game when and if you get it to run. Good luck and hope you get it running.

[shepardwrex]

Yeah that was like the first thing I tried when I reinstalled actually. Still crashed. And yeah I deleted plugins.txt and everything else in that folder, as well as everything from My Documents (moved saves to another folder). I kind of wish I could roll back to an old version of FO4 just to see if that would actually run or not. It's hard to know at this point if it's the game that's messed up or if there's a problem with my computer that's keeping it from running properly (like my drivers or something). At this point I'm seriously considering just giving this game a break until a few more patches have come out, and replaying FO3/ NV in the meantime.

[Royhr]

Well it's a strange one. I'm thinking that maybe it just might be something else other than the game itself. Have you added anything new to your computer recently?

 

BTW if you really like FO3 and FONV have you ever considered maybe trying Tales of Two Wastelands? If not you should check it out. Takes a little bit to get it all installed but it's worth it if you are fan of both of those games.

[shepardwrex]

Well I updated Windows and my drivers after the game started crashing. Prior to that, I hadn't changed or updated anything with it since before FO4. I think my last ditch effort here will be to reinstall my drivers again but this time I'll use DDU to make sure the old ones are completely uninstalled first. Also, just spitballing ideas here, but does the game tend to run more stably on Windows 10? I'm still using 7.

 

Yeah I've heard of that mod and it looks pretty cool. Since I haven't played either in a long time, though, I'm running them as close to vanilla as possible with only bug fixes and a few cosmetic enhancements, for maximum nostalgia.

[scandalz143187]

I've had luck occasionally with a longer play time before CTD after modifying my ini files. I still haven't totally worked mine out yet though. This is an example of some settings that I have been trying to modify in my fallout.ini I understand uExterior Cell Buffer and iPreloadSizeLimit are directly related to how much RAM you have. The settings below I believe are for low end PCs but with a little research this might point you in the right direction.

[General]bMouseAcceleration=0uInterior Cell Buffer=12uExterior Cell Buffer=144iNumHWThreads=8iPreloadSizeLimit=262144000[Display]fDefaultWorldFOV=90fDefault1stPersonFOV=90iPresentInterval=0bForceIgnoreSmoothness=1[Controls]bMouseAcceleration=0fMouseHeadingYScale=.03738